


dead boy's heart

by unveils



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/M, M/M, also john has his damn trenchcoat and not nick, alternate universe - remix of jld, the poly we deserved done right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 12:43:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12169104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveils/pseuds/unveils
Summary: John's not sure he has enough left of himself to give, to love them both, but they don't ask.





	dead boy's heart

**Author's Note:**

> i finally got around to reading jld #0 and man, what a hellscape of wasted potential. decided to remix the canon in a way that i feel is way more true to all parties involved. also, the trenchcoat is john's and always was john's, just as a note of reference.

It’s true what he tells people. 

You fall in love with Zatanna Zatara the second you meet her, and whatever part of you that you choose to give away in that moment, you never get back. John’s not a man with a lot of parts left to give, too many sworn over in safe spaces for demons and witches and men long dead, but once those curtains parted, she found something inside him to call her own.

He loves Nick, too, after a while, but falling with Nick is harder. He’s rough around the edges -- calloused hands against tender parts that leave John feeling like he’s not losing something, but holding on hard enough to bruise, desperate and ugly. 

Nick kisses him on a Friday after one of Zatanna’s shows, drags John out into the alleyway behind the stage door and presses their foreheads together so tight he thinks they’re going to fight. Nick’s got this ache in him, this ugly hunger and John knows it, has known it since he buried his own shit so deep inside of himself for Newcastle, so instead of taking, instead of holding on, for once in his life, John gives. 

Nick moans into his shoulder, tucks a strained curse like it’s going to have to learn to live in the corner of that trenchcoat at John’s neck. He kisses with teeth and anger, hunger and the spark like the first brush of fire against your open palms. 

It’s bright. It’s heavy. It’s Nick.

And that’s when John knows.

They fuck around for a while, not hiding but not speaking about it. Zatanna watches John with eyes too bright to be anything but knowing, but he keeps his space. 

It’s another Friday when John loses a bet with a Conservative shithead and a hard bottle and comes back to Nick and Z’s apartment like he belongs there, like he has any right to anything there worthy of nursing his wounds. Nick’s long gone, but Zatanna finds him fumbling in the kitchen for another bottle, and she takes his hands before they stop shaking.

John’s greedy, John’s got that ache, same as Nick. John needs people like Zatanna, so bright that what she takes is clean enough to keep him from blowing away.

She’s soft but not pliant beneath him -- guides his fingers into her, leads his mouth to her shoulder, her breasts. He hears himself speaking, stupid, breathy strings of drunken nothings that feel like magic in the moment. 

She comes with him inside of her, as beautiful and open and radiant as John always knew she would be. 

In the aftermath, she kisses his fingers, each bloodied knuckle, each bruised bone, brushes the hair back from his forehead and pulls him to her chest. 

“Where were you?” She asks, finally. “Nick was worried.” 

For the first time he wonders if he’s not taking something from them, too. 

If they’re both not giving it.

If that’s how this works.

“Don't know.” He answers, honestly. "But I'm here now, yeah? You can tell Nick to rest his pretty little head."

Zatanna smiles, picking herself up and making way for the bedroom.

"Come on, Constantine. I'll do up the bed."

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me about john / zatanna / dc anything on twitter @ugggghhhhhhhhhh


End file.
